Australian games market suffers dip

The Australian video game market fell by 16 per cent in 2010, but the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (iGEA) has insisted that the downturn is a blip – and that it will soon be heading for a new high.

For the calendar year 2010, Australian sales reached AUD$1.7 billion, down from just over AUD$2 billion in 2009.

Ron Curry, CEO of the iGEA, said: Compared to the most other international territories, our local interactive entertainment market has done considerably well to weather the global economic crisis which affected a broad range of entertainment industries.”

Citing PriceWaterhouseCoopers’ Australian Entertainment & Media Outlook 2010 – 2014 report, he went on to forecast that the market will return to AUD$2.5 billion by 2014, driven in large part by growth of online and mobile games.